0345 hours November 11 2552 (Military Calendar)

Scorpia

UNSC Colossus

Lieutenant Elizabeth Wheeler sat in the command chair of her modified Charon class frigate and shook her head as the frigate emerged from slipspace overlooking the scraphard as both colonial and UNSC forces had taken to calling the massive swath of dead ships.

It had been a busy week since the cylons had withdrawn from the sector leaving hundreds of broken ships from both sides. It had taken three days of round the clock SAR to pull the survivors from disabled fighters and wrecked ships; tens of thousands of humans had lost their lives in the maelstrom. She closed her eyes momentarily as ships names flashed in her mind Catapult, Cerberus, Hestia, Cronus and nearly a hundred and forty others.

Using tugs they had dragged all the wrecks to a single area and begun the long process of stripping them of everything they could leaving only Colonial forces around Scorpia to protect the planet and their people. The eleven surviving UNSC ships had been using individual Blitzkrieg tactics, dropping in alpha striking any cylon operated shiping in range and jumping out within ten minutes to immediately hit another location.

Colossus herself had racked up eighteen kills before returning to scorpia to rearm. Wheelers lip curled upwards as she remembers hitting the last Cylon Battlestar with a heavy plasma round and watching the energy weapon melt through several decks and ignite the battlestars viper and raider tylium fuel bunker causing it to violently detonate the shockwave sending a pair of Firestar's spinning into a Minerva battlestar before all three ships disappeared into a halo of debris.

As colossus passed the three colonial shipyards overloaded with nearly a thousand colonial ships being repaired or waiting the UNSC personnel saw the Jupiter class battlestar Ganymede missing its iconic alligator head being stripped of its port flightpod and half of its operational engines another nearby Jupiter class Thebe sat missing the exact pieces their shattered remains being pulled towards the scrapyard

"Incoming message from the planet Ma'am" called WO James Robertson called "Irs Colonial Command."

The view screen lit up to show President Elizabeth Howler and the Crown Princess of the Virgonese royal family Celea Wright was seated at her desk with General James Parks and Admiral Thomas Walton and Virgoneese Admrial Javin Hopkins standing just behind them overlooking the coastal waters of Scorpios vast ocean.

President Howler was first to say "welcome back Colossus." she said with a smile as the 11 year old princess nodded in agreement "you missed both Hyena and Rushmore by a few minutes. I trust your mission had no issues?"

With a nod to the adults and a small smile to the princess Wheeler replied " No Madame president no issues just returning for resupply before heading back out to keep they cylons on the backstep as long as possible so Colonial forces have time to repair and refit unfortunately we have found no new survivors and cylon shipping is getting thin in outlying areas."

Admiral Thomas walton nodded looking up from a pad "that's what Rushmore and Hyena's commanding officers said as well they had found about a dozen ships each before returning to rearm." he looked at the list again "same with the other UNSC commanders their initial attacks racked up all together nearly two hundred kills Captain suggested making a concentrated attack with all UNSC assets on your November 19th eight days from now and asked that we pass the orders on to each UNSC ship as it arrives to be in orbit no later then…" he trailed off to scroll through his pad "...Ah yes 2100 hours on the 18th."

"Understood Admiral, General, and Madame president. Then we will depart for a six day strike to recon possible targets of opportunity." before signing off.

As the Colossus drifted into Station F inbetween the half finished pair of Paris class frigates to the empty resupply dock Wheeler spoke inquiringly "I wonder what they will name these new frigates?"

Robertson interfaced with the stations databank looking for answers "apparently they are thinking of naming the frigates after mythological animals from their religion." he said his eyes closed moving quickly as he read "the one on our left will be named Minotaur and the right will be named centaur." he continued skimming through the data feed and his voice picked up "looks like after the frigates are launched plans are to concentrate on a Hillsborough class destroyer they plan on naming after a Battlestar named Atlantia the flagship of Admiral Micheal Nagala who led the colonial counter attack over Virgon. There's even talk that the first cruiser will be named Micheal Nagala in his honor."

Elizabeth nodded approvingly as the station crew began loading her ship with new munitions and other supplies. Civilian mobile restaurant freighter pulled up to give the crew Colonial cuisine and time to relax for the three hour load time.

The next hours pass in a blur as the UNSC personnel are treated to what would have been five star service back home and before anyone knows it the announcement comes over the ship's intercom "UNSC Colossus personnel resupply is completed."

Reboarding the colossus was a quick affair and before they knew it they were off.

Wheeler having spent her lunch looking over the star charts for a decent first recon location her eyes settled on Picon and her eyes narrowed. Compiled reports showed nearly eight hundred colonial and cylon ships, practically all of them heavily damaged, had jumped away. They had to go somewhere to get repairs and the primary fleet dock yards over picon was the single largest concentration of dockyards. She looked over the colonial information and saw the picon yards had over three hundred berths for everything from manticore corvettes to the newest Mercury class battlestars. And her grin was something to behold.

She began by issuing orders for the six remaining pelicans to be moved to the vehicle drop ramp on the ships belly and an additional three longswords and five pelicans to be stored in the empty vehicle bay bringing the colossus fighter wing to eleven fighters and eleven dropships. the three hundred UNSC marines were backed up by just over seven hundred Colonial naval personnel waiting for their ship to be repaired

32 days second cylon war

Picon orbital shipyard

The number 1 Jacob Cavil's face was red with rage and frustration; they had outnumbered the goddamned colonials five to one even though these strange UNSC humans had been outnumbered to the point of running out of ammunition . until that massive nuke…no it wasn't a nuke the destructive wave was much too powerful for any conceivable nuke his cybernetic mind could comprehend his mind drifted back to directing the cylon armada from the CIC of the captured Battlestar Zeus seeing the strange large fighter dive towards Basestar 1446 dodging raiders and cylon operated vipers until it impacted….

And then the world went white and next thing he knew he was emerging from the resurrection pod inside his basestar flagship. He slammed his fist down on the console as he looked over the seven berths filled with five moderately damaged firestars and a pair of Berserk carriers. The EMP of that massive explosion had fried nearly half a million centurans and caused irreparable neurological damage to nearly a thousand of his flesh and blood brothers and sisters.

To say they were understaffed would be an understatement of the century if not the millenium. He looked over to the twenty six undamaged Manticores and Firestars surrounding the bulk of a pair of Atlas class carriers that had been parked there out of the way, their centurion crews offloaded to assist in repairs to other ships. As he watched a Berzerk cleared the dock now fully repaired making way for a Firestar with its small iconic alligator head hanging on by its fused but smashed superstructure, the carrier moving to join the other undamaged warships.

Jacob looked over the two hundred odd ships that still needed to be repaired and sighed knowing the humans were doing the exact same thing "this day couldn't get any frakking worse."